See, I’m signed up for the American Diabetes Association’s annual Tour de Cure ride at the end of March, and I am raising money and riding miles to support this great organization. (If you want to support me, please go here. Every single dollar makes a difference and I NEED help to raise the most money possible!)

And when I say miles, I’m not kidding. I’m riding sixty freaking two of them. That’s a long time in the saddle kids.

This past Sunday was a good warm up event, and I got my cycle on with a 40 mile distance.

I’m not going to lie, I was SUPER nervous going into this ride. I had a friend to ride with, and had been putting in the training and the miles leading up to it, but 40 would be the longest ride I’ve done yet and I was a little concerned my body wouldn’t hold up.

Luckily, I was wrong. I felt GREAT. Amazing even. When we got to 10 miles I didn’t believe we were there already. At the rest stop at 20 I was itching to get back on my bike. At 30 I was still laughing and having a great time, and even pulling the pack a bit.

But at about 35 miles, while taking stock of how my body felt, I realized a somewhat unpleasant truth.

Despite the extremely padded bike shorts, the plethora of chamois butter, and the time spent training, my lady bits were KILLING me.

Ok actually that’s not entirely true. The shopping experience itself actually isn’t all that bad. There are some great deals, and they certainly have every frigging thing you can think of under one roof, so there IS that.

But what I detest about Wal-Mart is the check out process. In my experience, there are always lines of people 10 deep, many with more than one shopping card loaded to it’s maximum capacity. Frankly, I get it. Why go unless you’re going to hunker down for the apocalypse? I mean, I’ve been known to buy ammo AND bananas on the same trip.

But I digress.

Today I was in desperate need of a water filter for my refrigerator. After visiting two Lowe’s, a Home Depot and a Target, I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to go to Wal-Mart for this elusive device. I waited and planned and decided that 3 p.m. would probably be the best time to attempt my excursion.

As expected, the shopping experience was pretty seamless. I found the water filter, also remembered that I needed toothpaste, eggs, bananas, and picked up a set of glitter pens because I just couldn’t resist.

When I got to the checkout with my 5 items, as per usual, the “10 items or less” line had about 80 people in it, and three other registers were open, each with a sizable line of their own. Seeing as I hadn’t been drinking yet, I had a feeling this might be a stressful situation.

But much to my surprise, the couple that was in front of the guy in front of me in line, and had a large shopping cart full of groceries, offered to let both the guy in front of me (with just a few items) AND me jump in front of them!

Joy! Elation!

Unfortunately, I wasn’t going to get off that easily. As soon as I squeezed in my place in line, the elderly gentlemen asked me if I “know where I’m going?”

I looked at him surprised. “Well sir, I’m only 30 and the Alzheimer’s hasn’t yet set it, so yeah, I’m pretty clear. Uh, do you?” I responded.

“No no no!” Screeched his wife. Lowering her voice only slightly she continued, “after this. Do you know where you’re going after this?”

This was getting weird. “Yes ma’am. I’m going home to install my new water filter.”

At this point, they are clearly getting more than a little flustered. Since it’s possible they are a crazy knife wielding 70 year old murderous couple I’m considering using my newly acquired glitter pens as a weapon when finally he clarifies.

“After this life dear. Are you right with the Lord? Are you SURE you’re going to Heaven?”

Uh… um… “Thank you for your concern sir, I really appreciate it.” Really? At least I managed to bite my tongue and not tell them that I write regularly about poop and sex and the term “accidental orgasm” has brought over 6,000 visitors to my blog in the past few months.

But he wasn’t done yet. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a full color 18 page illustrated pamphlet. “Here,” he says, “read this and follow these instructions. This will guarantee your place in the house of the Lord when you die.”

At this point I had paid for my items and was about to walk out of the store and never see these people again. While I really do believe that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, it’s shit like this that just rubs me the wrong way.

So what did I do? You ask?

Simple, I responded, “Oooh thanks! It really would be great if there were some way I could make up for all of those lesbian group orgies that I filmed in college. Oh, and that accidental murder. But I’m totally down with a goat sacrifice. What page is that on? Goody. Thanks again.”

And I skipped off.

Here’s hoping I didn’t give the old guy a heart attack. Keep an eye on the news kittens. If you read about a man down in Wal-Mart, know he’s totally going to a better place.

Last week will from here forward be referred to as my “benchmarking week.”

Coming off my 7 week hiatus from doing anything even remotely healthy for myself (unless you count all the red wine I was drinking as healthy? No? Not so much? Bottle a night doesn’t qualify for health benefits? Well ok then. Bastard.) last week was kind of a re-boot week for myself.

I tracked my sleep, food intake, and weight over a 7 day period so I would have some idea of where I’m starting from.

It’s not pretty kittens. At the moment, as I’m temporarily retired, I’m sleeping way more than necessary. I’m also eating way WAY more than I need to be, and while it’s still relatively nutrient dense, my portions are out of control. As you might imagine, my weight is up and I’m itching to get some goals in place to get myself in check.

So without further ado, here are my goals for this week. Yeah, they might seem “easy” to the fit and freaking irritating, but for me, I need to take baby steps to make my health a habit again.

Goals:
5 Crossfit classes this week. Scale as needed to get the work in.
Track all food and calories (I use myfitnesspal app). Keeps cals under 2000 daily.
Include a serving of veggies with every meal.
Drink no more than 3 nights this week (baby steps here, baby steps).
Get out of bed by 8 a.m. daily.

Once I’m successful this week, I’ll add more for next week!

How about you guys and gals? What are you going to do this week to reach your goals?

I hear pretty frequently that Crossfit is a cult. Sure, it’s a “good” cult (is that like being a good witch) but it’s a cult. I can dig that.

What I don’t think these people realize is that Cycling is way more of a cult than Crossfit has figured out how to be yet.

And as someone who does both, let me tell ya, sometimes these cults are in conflict. In Crossfit you drink only gluten free hard cider where as in cycling you drink beer.

In Crossfit you eat steak and kale, in cycling you carbo load with pasta and Gu.

Luckily, both cults share a love of bacon, so I can deal with the rest of the conflicting messages.

As someone who is relatively new to both sports, I’m really lucky that both come with a rule book. In regards to Crossfit, just google “Crossfit House Rules” and you will get thousands of options of boxes around the country and their respective codes of conduct. They’re all similar. Work hard, push your limits, check your ego at the door.

In cycling, there is really only one rule book. Published by the infamous Velominati, the keepers of the cog, new and seasoned cyclists alike can appreciate the 93 rules of riding the road.

Granted, I don’t have a ton of experience with cycling clubs, but speaking for the one I ride with pretty regularly I can tell you, we know our rules.

Not only do we know the rules, but we regularly reference them. In the middle of a windy ride, someone might just yell “Rule 5” as they’re pulling the paceline and hammering away.

When I asked about a tri or racerback tank top to go with our new team kits, I was simply told “Rule 7” and it was left at that.

Most recently, after my epic derailleur fail, I decided it was time to push the new bike conversation husband and I had been having recently a little further. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my Allez, but as I bought it nearly 10 years ago now before I knew what I was really looking for in a bike, I had been itching for an upgrade.

Yes, I have a full carbon very fancy tri bike. No, it’s not the same thing.

As it turned out, hubs was more than willing to not only have the conversation, but to buy the bike. So tomorrow I will be getting fit on my brand spankin’ new Specialized Tarmac SL4 Comp Ultegra.

I’m so excited I could pee.

But wouldn’t you know it, not 15 minutes after they called me to tell me that my new bike has come in, I received a second call from the shop telling me that they had figured out how to FIX my Allez! For “only” $180 I could have her good as new and still be able to ride her from time to time if I ever desired.

I’m sure you all see where this is going. Husband didn’t quite understand it. Luckily for me, I was able to reference “the rules” and help him to know the reality of how this works.

According to Rule #12:

“While the minimum number of bikes one should own is three, the correct number is n+1, where n is the number of bikes currently owned. This equation may also be re-written as s-1, where s is the number of bikes owned that would result in separation from your partner.”

Lucky for me, 3 bikes does not equal s-1.

So as of tomorrow I will have my original road bike, my tri bike, and my fancy new bike (yes they all have names), and only one ass to ride them with.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have a habit of having a lot of internal dialogue during especially difficult workouts. At Crossfit these usually translate into some sort of repeatable mantra’s, but when I’m cycling it’s usually music.

I think it might be because it helps me to keep my cadence where it belongs. If I think of a song with a beat that’s around 90 rpm, I can pedal to the beat. If I end up singing it really reallllllly slow in my head, I know I need to pick it up or downshift, and if I’m goingsofastthatican’tactuallygetthewordsout, it’s time to add more gear.

I usually don’t pick the song on purpose. It just happens to be whatever pops into my head at the time.

Sometimes I don’t even realize I’m singing one because I’m so in the zone.

My rides this week have been pretty darn windy, making me zone out hardcore and just focus on pushing the pedals.

During my particularly brutal ride last Saturday, I had reached a point where my lady bits were screaming, the wind what whipping, and I had just had enough. I was on the lowest gear the bike had and felt like I was barely moving forward.

At one point during the ride I had been singing Rhianna’s “Rescue Me” to myself (yeah, no accounting for taste when I’m in pain), and went back to that song just to keep the pedals moving.

Before I knew it was humming, OUT LOUD the melody to “The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round…” what the?

Ok sarcastic little devil sitting on my shoulder who decided it was a good idea to do this ride, I don’t have children. I have ABSOLUTELY no excuse for that song to be stuck in my head.

But I’ll tell ya what, it had the perfect tempo to get me home.

Add some bass and a little booty shakin’, and Usher might have his next hit right there.

When I have to poo at work I have a really bad habit of waiting until the last possible minute to go to the bathroom.

I’m usually right in the middle of something important, and need to finish my thought before it falls out of my head. Granted, this usually results in my having to walk very briskly and ignore if someone calls my name while I’m flying by, but so far it’s been a successful option.

But today, I think I waited a smidge too long. I stood up, took two steps, and then had the five-step-walking-toots.

Every step was a fart. And they were LOUD.

Have I mentioned that I work for a technology company in an office environment that is SO quiet that they actually added a white noise fan so that it isn’t eerie?

I took an extra long time in the bathroom and a different route back to my cube after that experience, all while hanging my head in shame.

Today, powered by nothing but the maximum velocity of my own awesomeness, I RIPPED my derailleur off of my bike frame about 10 seconds into a ride.

I ripped metal from metal with the sheer power of my thighs.

Forget thunder thighs. These bitches are made of lightning.

From the top. It’s not supposed to be just dangling there like that.See that shiny metal part that has never been exposed to the light and therefore doesn’t have the same slick black paintjob? Yeah, that’s where the metal tore away.

Now never you mind that these particular pants are at least 5 years old, are my favorite black ones, and have been worn and washed at least once per week since I bought them.

We also should not take into consideration that the hems on both legs have fallen out more than once, and have been repaired, and even now the left one is being held on by safety pins because I just haven’t had the time to get the sewing machine out.

It’s irrelevant that all of the buttons on them are not the originals, as over time they’ve fallen off and needed to be replaced.

None of that matters.

Because right now I’m focused the fact that my fat ass sad down and RIPPED THE EFFING ZIPPER OUT OF MY PANTS people.

Lately I keep reading about how toes to bar causes people to unexpectedly orgasm.

It’s a real thing, I swear. Google it.

It seems it happens in both men and women, though in women it seems to be something they know is coming (see what I did there) while in men it’s usually extremely unexpected.

I totally believe it. It’s one of those movements where there’s a lot of rubbing and pelvic floor action, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen some accidental boners from it.

Julie Foucher doing toes to bar. I’m pretty sure if I were a guy this pic alone would give me an accidental boner.

So now I really really want to get toes to bar.

But at the same time, I’m terrified I’m going to be one of the people who has this superpower.

What if I can’t stop myself? What if, three into a set I spontaneously combust and turn into a screamer? I mean, not that anyone would notice anything strange there since I do make some weird noises when I exercise.

But, oh God, what if it’s so unexpected that I can’t prepare? I can see it now: I splooge and then lose my grip, fall off the bar, whap my head on the way down and end up with a concussion?